Treasures, continued. . .

Transcription of voiceover narration for Mystery Castle Project
(Each item is another child's voice. My questions are interspersed.)

• Maybe I would think that it’s called a treasure box. Because it looks like treasure, because when we put it somewhere, and it looked-ed like a treasure that nobody can find it there.
Whose treasure?
• Our treasure. Everybody’s treasure that you took, to that, to that, to there, and maybe they saw it and they was like, “that’s a treasure.”
What is a treasure?
• A treasure is when you find—when you, when you. . . when you want to go to it, and you open it, and it has stuff in it.
• A treasure if you, if you have a key, and you open it but squirrels don’t eat keys cause they use their own thing for their own house.
• They use their arms.
Why were you dressed in orange?
• Because Orange is a beautiful color. . . and we found a mysterical (sic) treasure.
What was the box like?
• (With great excitement on her face, whispering urgently): It had berries! And porcupines!
We love the box. We were the first ones to find it. Cause it was a treasure. When we left, he was crying…the box. Cause the box was our friend.

There may be many definitions for treasure, and certainly each of the children saw the box in their own unique way. But every child involved in this project perceived the box made of seeds and nuts to be something special. It was something that no one had ever seen before, an object that could help the squirrels and the other 'little ones,' a place that was mysterical and mysterious, a thing that was loved and treasured, by humans and animals alike.

These children's journey together into the world of the seed-box-treasure is something 'mysterical' in itself--it draws me in as I sit here editing it. I have found myself often shaking my head in disbelief at the artistry and poetry of the words the children put together. If you want to venture inside the minds of young children and their imaginative wanderings, as scarily brilliant and beautiful as they are, this might be a good place to start. Order the DVD here.